1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multifunction image forming apparatus which accumulates document information of copied documents, scanner read documents, and e-mail documents, etc., and searches the accumulated document information in accordance with operation of a user, and a document information searching method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various document information is accumulated in a complex machine (multifunction image forming apparatus) which includes functions of a scanner, printer, and a facsimile, etc. In a case where a user of a complex machine searches requested document information from the document information accumulated in this kind of complex machine, for example, the user finds the requested document by operating a display of an operation unit of a complex machine, to sequentially select a lower classification category that the requested document information belongs to, from the higher classification category.
A method of searching document information will be described, by an example of a case where a user of a complex machine wants to display a contract document A1 that is accumulated by a structure of “contract management”—“license contract”—“license contract concerning customer A”—“contract document A1”.
The user of the complex machine operates the display of the operation unit of the complex machine, and firstly, displays the category names “contract management”, “report document management”, etc., of the highest classification category names. Next, the user selects “contract management” from the classification category displayed on the display, and operates the display of the operation unit to display lower classification category names “license contract”, “joint application contract”, etc., of the category “contract management”. Sequentially, the user selects “license contract” from the classification category displayed on the display, and operates the display of the operation unit to display lower classification category names “license contract concerning customer A”, “license contract concerning customer B” etc., of the category “license contract”. Next, the user selects “license contract concerning customer A” from the classification category displayed on the display, and operates the display of the operation unit to display lower classification category names “contract document A1”, “contract document A2”, etc., of the category “license contract concerning customer A”. Then, by the user selecting “contract document A1” from the classification category displayed on the display, contract document A1 can be displayed on the display. In this way, to search the contract document A1 (the document of the lowest classification category), the user has to select the category and document many times, therefore, it takes a lot of trouble.
In Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. 2001-77998, a complex machine including data document searching function, which can accumulate a sending document to a memory, and search a data document by a keyword, is disclosed. However, with this kind of complex machine, in a case where a user searches a data document, it takes a long time until the requested data document is displayed. Therefore, information that the user requests can not be rapidly obtained. Also, with this kind of complex machine, because anyone can search a data document, sufficient security management of document information can not be carried out.